Philippines

Orphanage hangs

The Field of Dreams is a rad boys home set up just outside of Davao city, on the Philippines island of Mindanao. Now, Mindanao can be a pretty sketchy place. In fact, it often comes with a ‘do not travel’ warning. But like with many places in the world, if you’re not looking for trouble, it often doesn’t find you. And the Field of Dreams is a bit like that – a little oasis of safety.

We’ve been there three times now. Ben is pretty much considered an older brother. We’ve played at least three hundred games of basketball, done the equivalent of two weeks worth of homework, learnt how to machete a coconut, made the perfect fried chicken, danced to a lot of Taylor Swift, practised our Tagalog, had our hair braided and hands massaged, cried with them, laughed (a lot) with them and then one time we took the little ones to McDonald’s and then to a park and they proceeded to vomit it all back up on the wizzy dizzy.